Fox

The NFL American football league suffered an eight per cent year-on-year drop in US television viewership during its 2016 regular season, according to data obtained by ESPN.com.

Pan-European pay-television broadcaster Sky, a major broadcaster of sports coverage, has confirmed a takeover approach from US media company 21st Century Fox.

The Chicago Cubs’ decisive victory over the Cleveland Indians in game seven of this year’s World Series attracted the largest audience for Major League Baseball’s end-of-season showpiece since 1991.

US subscription video-on-demand service Hulu has secured carriage deals with media companies 21st Century Fox and Walt Disney.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFL American football franchise has entered into a multi-year local rights partnership with WOFL-TV/Fox 35, a regional television channel operated by media company 21st Century Fox.

US football streaming platform fuboTV has raised $15m (€13.4m) in a Series B funding round led by investments from European pay-television broadcast group Sky and US media company 21st Century Fox.

A successful inaugural Formula E season drove Fox to extend its Latin and North American deals ahead of time.

US media company 21st Century Fox has appointed Brian Sullivan, the former chief executive of German pay-television broadcaster Sky Deutschland, to the newly created role of president of digital for its Fox Networks Group division.

Influential sports media executive David Hill will step down from Rupert Murdoch’s US media company 21st Century Fox to launch a new production venture.

Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke has maintained world football’s governing body did “nothing wrong” in negotiating its new US rights deal for the World Cup, adding the agreement was needed to protect date changes for the 2022 tournament in Qatar.

Fifa avoided the prospect of going back into a US court by agreeing to extend its World Cup rights deal with Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Sports last month. But getting off the legal hook comes at a price, in terms of questions about Fifa’s governance and also, possibly, in having sold the rights at well below market value.

The amounts paid for the rights to the 2026 World Cup by Fox and Telemundo in the US and Bell Media in Canada are unconfirmed

Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke has defended the new US broadcast rights deal signed by world football’s governing body, stating it did not break any “international rules.”

Rupert Murdoch’s US media company, 21st Century Fox, has denied reports that it has held talks over a takeover of global media and entertainment company Discovery Communications.

Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders franchise has extended rights deals with two regional broadcasters ahead of the 2015 season of the North American tournament.

Fifa, football’s global governing body, has renewed rights deals with the Fox network and pay-television broadcaster Telemundo in the US and with telecommunications company Bell Media in Canada.

Major League Baseball is in talks with Fox that would result in streamed games from the US network’s regional sports broadcasters provided without blackouts, according to the Forbes website.

US networks CBS, ESPN, Fox and NBC, along with the IMG and WME agencies, have joined forces to apply for the dismissal of a legal action brought by a group of college American football and basketball players, claiming it would mean “chaos” for sports broadcasting.